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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349303">With Friends Like These, Who Needs Adversaries?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemoiunder/pseuds/kemoiunder'>kemoiunder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tendou Satori Week 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Not Fluff, Tendou just needs a good monologue, a little less fluff and more angst, but not pure angst y'know?, not quite angst?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:21:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>820</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemoiunder/pseuds/kemoiunder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tendou could really use a good monologue. Why not about his wonderful friends? That's it, that's the whole title. And story.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is the final day of Tendou Satori Week!! The prompt for this last day was Friends. I think I can only ever really write Tendou as either a melodramatic boy, or a hyperactive boy, which could really go either way. Hope this one is enjoyed~</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tendou Satori Week 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>TendouWeek2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>With Friends Like These, Who Needs Adversaries?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Satori used to hate going to volleyball practice. He remembered back in middle school he would always try to be on the team, but based on his blocking style he would never be put on the first string players, even though he could consistently gain points. He would block and block and block, but it was never enough, his personality was always too abrasive for his teammates, they didn't want to play with him. Satori didn't realize until he reached high school that it had made a sort of resentment curl inside his stomach. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being at Shiratorizawa was like a dream come true, he was put on the team by Washijou-sensei, and he could finally use his skills to gain them points. Having teammates trust him was also a surreal experience, he had to really bite his tongue and not just be defensive at certain points before. But with Shiratorizawa, he didn't have to explain his gut-feelings when he blocked. If he scored points, that was the end of it, they accepted his feeling for what it was. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He remembered feeling elated that he finally had a group of people that understood him, that understood that he could feel like the ball will go a certain way and not question it. Satori could go around and around with his thoughts, but to what end? </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were currently on a break, not for the season or anything. Shiratorizawa had a thing where they practiced for six days and had a free day to recuperate. Usually it was Sundays, because they didn't have classes to attend and so they could truly relax their bodies. That hardly stopped Ushijima Wakatoshi, who still went on his daily run around the town, but he didn't go to practice. Satori and Ushijima usually hung out with their fellow third years, unless they had some other thing to do. This current Sunday he and Semi Eita were probably going to be studying with Yamagata Hayato, because apparently Yamagata was having trouble with his current math problems, according to their third year group chat. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They had a team group chat, but then they also had a separate group chat for the third years, which usually consisted of Semi and Oohira Reon talking about the assignments that were due that Yamagata was procrastinating on. Ushijima was pretty good about getting his classwork done on time, as was Satori. He usually just struggled with tests, just because he was a bad test taker. Semi understood that part, he didn't have test anxiety, but he knew that Satori really struggled with it. The third years tried to study enough to make that not as horrible in practice, but sometimes it just meant that Satori had to make up the loss of points in his tests elsewhere.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was about time to go to Yamagata's dorm room that he shared with Oohira. He and Semi shared a room while Ushijima shared with Soekawa Jin, their vice captain. Satori had been surprised when they were all semi-sort of together, all of the volleyball players. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He often had wondered if there was a conspiracy with it, if they were purposefully put in the rooms with the people they'd be seeing so much of. That was both a good and bad thing. Good that they would have more opportunities to forge the bonds of friendship with their teammates, bad that they wouldn't have more opportunities to meet different people in the long-run, at least in the same way a bond forges through a mutual living space. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Satori didn't exactly mind it though, he loved his teammates, they accepted him for who he was and didn't judge him. But he remembered the dread that used to come with going to practice, the eyes of the people that judged him and called him a monster. He had to wade through a lot of his own insecurities before he could really accept that the people he played volleyball with genuinely cared about him and wanted him to succeed. Now as he walked to Yamagata's dorm room, only a couple doors down from his and Semi's own, he had to wonder if this was really his life. Studying with friends on days off, going to volleyball practice with the same friends, living his best life. He may not ever get this chance again, or was that just his insecurities trying to bring him down? Satori surmised that he probably would never fully recover from the Guess Monster bullying from when he was younger, but having friends now definitely made up for a lot of it. It certainly helped curb those internal monologues of his telling him that he wouldn't ever be good enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He finally had a safe place to call his own that he could be as weird as he wanted. He could just be the Guess Monster of Shiratorizawa. He had friends now, who would have thought!</p>
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